ked.
Her eyes and the back of her head ached dully; but she felt that she
must refresh herself and change her morning gown before Lady Wychcote
came back with Bobby. She bathed her face and eyes, put on a tea-gown,
and returned to the drawing-room to wait for them. Taking up a book, she
tried to read, but found that she could not command her attention. It
occurred to her that she ought to write to Amaldi, but this also she
found impossible. She could not write to him on the same day that she
had seen Loring for the first time since her divorce. Then suddenly
memories of Cecil began to haunt her. Incidents of their early love-days
together came back to her with words and looks distinct as reality
itself.

She went and leaned on the little balcony. The sun had just gone down.
Air and water were suffused with the afterglow. High overhead, the
Venice swifts flew shrilling as with ecstasy. Their musical arabesques
of flight patterned the upper blue like joy made visible. Some dementia
of supernal bliss seemed to impel them. The fine, exultant, piercing
notes were like showers of tiny, crystal arrows shot earthward from the
heights of heaven.

Sophy stood gazing up at them, and the mystery of their joy, and of her
pain, filled her with a new aching.

She leaned there until the afterglow had died away; but it was not until
seven o'clock that she began to feel anxious. By the time that it was
nearly eight and Lady Wychcote and Bobby had not come, she was greatly
alarmed, and this alarm swept away all lesser considerations. She sent a
wire to Amaldi, saying: "_Bobby and his grandmother went to Murano this
morning. Expected to return at six. Not here yet. Fear some accident.
Will you come and advise me._" Then she had a consultation with Lorenzo,
the first gondoliere, a quiet, capable man of about forty. She thought
of going herself to Murano to make inquiries, but it would take a long
time by gondola. Could Lorenzo think of any way of getting there more
quickly. Lorenzo said that his cousin Ippolito had a steam-launch in
which he took out pleasure-parties. He might try to get that; but then
he must remind the Signora that the glass-works at Murano would be
closed at this hour. It would be very difficult to make inquiries. Why
did not the Signora go to the Questura for aid? The police might be able
to think of some way in which to get at the people of the glass-works.

An idea came to her suddenly. She wondered at herself for